Pop: The life and soul

Buena Vista Social Club put Cuban music back on the map. But where does it go now? Clive Davis meets the man who is shaping its future

Occasionally, an album can sum up a decade: think of Sgt Pepper and the 1960s. In even rarer cases, a record embodies an entire nation. That was the unexpected fate of Buena Vista Social Club, the disc that introduced the music of Cuba’s elder statesmen to millions around the world. Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez and Compay Segundo were all feted by listeners who normally would not stray into the world-music section of their local megastore.

As is the way with these things, the success of the various Buena Vista spin-offs has generated a miniature backlash among the cognoscenti. It is all very well celebrating Cuba’s past, they say, but what about nurturing the future? Is Castro’s island, locked in a 1950s time warp, destined to remain a museum piece? Or is Cuba set to reassert its place as a crucible of popular music? Some encouraging clues are blowing in the